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AUBURN UNIVERSITY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS & ARCHIVES DEPARTMENT

Guide to the William LeRoy Broun Presidential Records RG No.: 533 Listed by: Alfrieda Brummitt
Date: 3/6/98

Scope/Content: Collection contains materials relative to Broun's personal life, his family genealogy, and his tenure as president of Alabama A&M College / Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University). Organized into 8 series: Personal Correspondence, Presidential Papers, Educational Material, General Materials, Scrapbooks, Account Books, Clippings, and Broun Family Material.

History: Dr. William Leroy Broun (1827-1902) served as President of Alabama A&M College, 1882-1883 and 1884-1902. He was born in Virginia and graduated from the University there in 1850 after distinguishing himself in mathematics. Broun taught in Mississippi and at the University of Georgia before returning to Virginia to organize Bloomfield Academy, Albemarle Co., Virginia, in 1856.

At the beginning of the Civil War, Broun enlisted as an artillery officer. He was soon promoted to be commandant of the Richmond Arsenal. After the Civil War, Broun returned to the University of Georgia, was elected president of the Georgia A&M College, and then became professor of mathematics at newly-established Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1882 the Board of Trustees of Alabama A&M College (now Auburn University) elected him President, but the board's failure to adopt Broun's reorganization plan led to his resignation in 1883. He became professor of mathematics at the University of Texas, but was recalled as President of Alabama A&M after a one-year absence. He served in that capacity until his death in 1902.

Broun's insistence on laboratory-based science and technical education and his ability to fully utilize the Alabama Fertilizer Tax and the Federal Hatch Act allowed Auburn to create its Agricultural Experiment Station system and to become one of the premiere Morrill Act schools in the South. Broun oversaw three significant changes in life at Alabama A&M College--the admission of women to the College in 1892, the advent of football that same year, and the change of the school's name to Alabama Polytechnic Institute in 1899.

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INVENTORY

SERIES 1: PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE

Box I

1844-65 (15 folders)

Box II

1866-71 (17 folders)

Box III

1872-5 (15 folders)

Box IV

1876-83 (12 folders)

Box V

1883-85 (13 folders)

Box VI

1887-90 (17 folders)

Box VII

1890-94 (10 folders)

Box VIII

1894-99 (11 folders)

Box IX

1899-1902 (4 folders)
Undated (5 folders)

Box X

Undated (2 folders)
Undated (Civil War)
Undated (Plantation)

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SERIES 2: PRESIDENTIAL PAPERS, ALABAMA A&M COLLEGE (See Also: HERE)

Box X

1882-91 Letterpress Book
1885-95 (8 folders)

Box XI

1895-1902 (3 folders)
Undated

SERIES 3: EDUCATIONAL MATERIAL

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Addresses and Articles by Broun

Alabama A&M College Printed Material and Departmental Reports

General Printed Matter

Georgia A&M College Material

Box XI

Baccalaureate Addresses, Alabama Polytechnic Institute, 1885, 1890, 1892
Cornerstone Address, Georgia State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, 1874
Geometry, c. 1892
"How We See," c. 1892
"Improvements in Southern Colleges," 1868
"Modern Astronomy," 1877
Presidential Address, Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations, 1892
"Report of the Eclipse," 1869
"Story of the Sun and Poetry Argument"
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